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Thursday, October 16, 2014

Emma by Jane Austen

This post contains major spoilers.

Emmais the second Jane Austen novel
for me. This book has
so much to recommend and it is so many things. The characters are expertly
crafted, and the story is fun and meaningful. Austen often writes effective
satire and easily amuses. It includes complex commentary on the English class
system of the time. It is full of insightful wit and wisdom. This is another
novel that is so beloved by readers that it is almost a paragon in the eyes of
its fans. My contention is that it does indeed deserve much of the praise that
it has garnered.

The book’s namesake is Emma
Woodhouse. Emma is intelligent, lively and often kind and
supportive of her friends. At the same time, she is deeply flawed. She is socially
and intellectually snobbish. She looks down on the majority of her acquaintances
and neighbors. While she tries to be helpful and generous to the people whom
she likes, she is hypercritical of those who she does not approve of. She seems
to lurch between states when she is self-aware and other periods where she
seems blind to her own vices.

With all of this, Emma, even at her worst, is not an unpleasant character
to read about. She is so humorous, witty
and engaging. Austen’s words that describe even her foibles are a pleasure to
read. Despite her flaws, her redeeming qualities are also numerous. She is ultimately
a marvelous literary creation.

There are several additional wonderfully drawn characters. George Knightley
is a good friend who is never afraid to point out Emma’s bad behavior. He is also
quick to criticize others, but he also shows a core of decency.

Jane Fairfax is a young woman of whom Emma is
initially unfairly critical. This is in contrast to Harriet Smith, another young woman who Emma takes under her wing and attempts to find a
husband for. In the course of this attempted matchmaking, Emma does more harm
than good.

Mr. Frank Churchill is a
young man who presumably shows romantic interest in Emma as well as in other
young women in the circle.

Through much of the narrative, Emma declares that she is not interested in
marriage. Nevertheless, the plot involves Emma and her friends’ romantic
entanglements, all aimed, of course, at finding spouses.

In this this post I focused on how in Pride and Prejudice,Austen explored the concept of human perception in very
sophisticated ways. Reading Emma, I see a similar
theme. The author plays with the concept of perception and individual bias
quite a bit in this novel. Emma herself is both the perpetrator and the victim
of her own mischaracterizations.

In some ways, this novel can be described as a misreading of
the world based upon Emma’s incorrect perceptions. Like Pride and Prejudice, this
work is written in third person, but it is mostly written from the main
character’s, in this case Emma’s, point of view. Not only does Emma see the
world from a distorted vantage point, her misperceptions take the reader along
for the ride.

As noted above, Emma attempts to assist Harriet Smith in procuring a husband. Early on,
Emma becomes convinced that an attractive young man, Philip Elton, is in love
and about to propose marriage to Harriet. Emma’s certainty on this issue
convinces Harriet of Elton’s affections. I was similarly taken along with Emma’s
theory, adding to the effect for me.

Emma is subsequently shown to be completely wrong
when Elton professes his love for Emma herself, and he declares that he is
uninterested in Harriet. Needless to say, Emma spurns Elton’s proposal in what
is a very bad scene for both of them.

Later, a similar process occurs when another
young man, Frank Churchill, comes into the picture. At first, Emma believes
that Churchill is enamored with herself. Declaring to herself that she is
uninterested in his affections, she subtly steers Frank toward Harriet. Our
heroine once again becomes convinced that she has helped create a match for
Harriet. Once again, this proves to be a miscalculation when Frank declares
that he has been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. To add
insult to injury, Emma is shocked when Harriet declares that she was never
interested in Frank. She instead reveals a budding interest in George Knightley, who Emma comes to realize
that she herself is in love with.

Emma’s belated self-acknowledgement of her love
for Knightly, someone that she has known for years, may be the ultimate flaw in
perception. Emma comes to understand that she has been in love with the man for
some time, yet never admitted this to herself.

At the moment when Harriet informs Emma that she
has fallen for Mr. Knightly, and that it seems
that Knightly has fallen for her, the revelation comes upon Emma,

“Emma's
eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed
attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her
acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion,
made rapid progress. She touched— she admitted— she acknowledged the whole
truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr.
Knightley, than with Frank Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased
by Harriet's having some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the
speed of an arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself! “

All of this makes the novel a brilliant study in
human perception and misperception. By including the reader in some of the
confusion, Austen adds another level to what is, in a way, a case study into a
certain aspect of human psychology.

There is a lot more going on in this book than commentary on
people’s tendency to perceive the world incorrectly. As I pointed out above,
there is a lot to recommend in this novel. It is a must read for anyone who
likes other Austen books or English literature in general.Emmais both a high artistic achievement and a very fun read.

24 comments:

Another favourite from my school days. It's Emma's flaws that make her all the more believable and endearing as a character. I like the way you've focused on the theme of perceptions and misperceptions (including the role of the reader in this mix). Very true.

Hello Brian, I was very interested to read this as, purely by coincidence, I finished my latest re-read of "Emma" earlier this week. I think I must admit that Austen is not really my kind of writer, but that is just a personal observation that has no place in criticism. The artistry of the novel is self-evident.

I'll try to put up a post on "Emma" some time next week. Currently, I am wondering whether I could present it as Austen's "Crime and Punishment". (Well - it's much the same story, isn't it? It's the story of transgression and redemption...) It'll take a bit of work, but it might be fun. But then, I might decide that it's all a bit too silly, and write something a bit more sensible instead!

Hi Himadri - I do think that that when I was younger I would have said the same thing about Austen not being my kind of writer, but as I get older I seem to appreciate all kinds of different things including happy endings!

I agree with you regarding literary criticism. On the other hand these personal blogs are really for us all to discuss books and we do not always need to adhere to the rules, even if we choose to do sometimes.

I actually have not yet read Crime and Punishment but I really need to get to it.

I remember thinking it odd at the time and looking back still think it odd that none of these classics featured on my o level English Literature course all those years ago. In fact they weren't read at school at all, I only got to read some of them because my mam had studied them as a schoolgirl and still had her copies.

As a matter of interest our set o level texts were Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale and George Orwell's 1984.

I enjoyed this one a great deal as well. I think it's her funniest but that doesn't mean it isn't deep. Emma is flawed but she never annoyed me. She's quite endearing. I need to re-read it and re-watch the movie as well.

I enjoyed this one a great deal as well. I think it's her funniest but that doesn't mean it isn't deep. Emma is flawed but she never annoyed me. She's quite endearing. I need to re-read it and re-watch the movie as well.

I enjoyed this one a great deal as well. I think it's her funniest but that doesn't mean it isn't deep. Emma is flawed but she never annoyed me. She's quite endearing. I need to re-read it and re-watch the movie as well.

Nice commentary, Brian! Unlike many other people, I never read this, even in my younger years. Was good to hear your thoughts on it. I mostly read contemporary literature, but enjoy returning to the classics sometimes. Just finished Bleak House and loved it!

I love Emma. I don't know if I completely agree with you, if I'm understanding you, that the reader can be mislead by Emma's perceptions. I could see Emma's fallible thinking throughout and found her frustrating. Especially when she manipulates her friend Harriet while oblivious to the fact that that is what she's doing.I do like how human she is. She really messes up, but luckily she does have Mr. Knightly to serve as an older brother/ mentor to set her right.Then there's the mystery between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax who I didn't like for a lot of the story until the end. I suppose in that way, Emma did mislead me because I saw her through Emma's eyes. It's such a great story! Take care.

Great commentary. I totally agree with you, everything is about perception, just like Pride & Prejudice.The difference between the two is that the reader sees that Emma has a wrong perception of the people around her. The reader knows before her what's going to happen with Mr Elton (The carriage scene is wonderful, btw) and guesses something is fishy in Frank Churchill's behaviour. Perhaps it's because Mr Knightley acts as a pointer in his discussions with Emma.

I also think it's a great book about the condition of women in that time and it also shows the social classes of the English country.